Veronica foods Archives - D'Olivo Tasting Bar

May 17, 2023

Best Recipes for Green Olives

Here at D’Olivo we love olives. From the beautiful, delicious, and high-quality extra virgin olive oils they produce to the tasty recipes you can make with both the olives and the olive oils there’s so much to explore. Check out some of our favorite recipes for green olives below!

Pizza with Green Olives

Everyone loves a good pizza, and no matter what your favorite go-to toppings are, green olives, and the flavor profile they can offer, make an excellent addition. Get adventurous and take a break from ordering pizza from your favorite place and instead try making it a family affair by making your own. We’ve got a great pizza recipe for you to check out.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/green-olive-pizza/

Greek Salad

Greek salads are a favorite for us, especially during the warm summer months when it’s nice to have lots of healthy, flavorful, and refreshing recipes on hand. For those days when you need a quick snack or just don’t want to fire up the stove or grill, consider throwing one of these together. It also makes a great potluck dish – quick and easy – so keep this one on hand for any occasion.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/green-olive-greek-salad/

Greek Chicken Pita

We’re staying with the Greek theme on this next suggestion too. What can we say, they know how to cook with olives! A Greek gyro is one of the tastiest dishes you can find, and this recipe puts a fun spin on that traditional dish. While it calls for chicken you could definitely substitute in another meat of your choosing or make it all-veggies. Give it a try.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/greek-chicken-pita-bowls/

Marinated Olives

Green olives, or olives of any kind really, can be delicious on their own. You can purchase some amazing stuffed olives (at D’Olivo we offer a great selection of Delizia stuffed olives) or purchase pitted green olives and marinate your own. If you’re the kind who likes to tinker with homemade goods, give these a try.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/marinated-olives/

Pasta Salad

Another easy, quick side-dish for the warm summer months is pasta salad. Kick yours up a notch or two by adding in green olives. If you’re feeling extra adventurous try your favorite stuffed Delizia olive and substitute it for plain, pitted green olives. Trust us that this one is going to be a crowd pleaser.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/green-olive-pasta-salad/

Shrimp Orzo Salad

Shrimp, or any fish, can make a great meal and this orzo pasta dish is no exception. We love things that are quick to make and throw together since we know how great it is to have easy meals on hand for extra busy weeknights or for days that you just don’t want to spend too much time cooking.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/shrimp-orzo-salad/

Sheet Pan Chicken

Another easy to make meal is sheet pan chicken. Simply throw together your sauce, marinate it in the dressing of your choice and place everything onto a pan and bake it in the oven. It comes out with everything ready to go. You can choose to add some additional sides or just eat it as is. If you’re looking for a great sheet pan recipe to try, we’ve got a great one.

https://dolivotastingbar.com/recipes/sheet-pan-chicken/

June 25, 2018June 19, 2018

About Veronica Foods

Since starting the D’Olivo brand and to this day, it’s been our goal to provide customers with nothing but the highest quality olive oil. During our initial search for a supplier, we were fortunate enough to stumble across Veronica Foods and learn that their mission aligned with ours perfectly – make the finest, freshest, and broadest selection of extra virgin olive oil in the world. By exclusively carrying their olive oil products, we’ve been able to spread the beneficial properties and amazing flavors of olive oil to thousands of customers year after year.

To learn about what makes Veronica Foods olive oil so special, we have to first look back at their humble beginnings in 1942, when the company was founded. After 47 years with less than 1% of the company’s business coming from olive oil, the founder’s daughter, Veronica, and her husband, Michael Bradley, took the family reigns and decided to focus on olive oil in a more serious and committed way.

Though they knew little about olive oil or how they would grow the business, Veronica and Michael spent years traveling the olive oil producing regions of the world, tasting hundreds of different styles to expand their knowledge and explore new methods. By 1998, their dream became reality when they purchased their own olive grove and state-of-the-art crushing mill so they could test and evaluate methods learned during their travels to begin producing olive oil of the highest quality.

Today, Veronica Foods continues to produce the finest conventional, organic, and fused whole fruit citrus olive oil from their mill in Tunisia, importing more than 1 million gallons each year to supply hundreds of specialty retail shops throughout the United States. Outside of producing their own olive oil from their grove in Tunisia, Veronica Foods has also formed many exclusive alliances with small regional mills that are unable to expand into the US market alone, helping to introduce American’s to many unique olive oil varieties for the first time.

Before even being able to sell Veronica Foods olive oil, stores must first go through an intensive educational seminar to ensure they know everything there is to know about their olive oil and the beneficial properties it provides to customers. They place a heavy focus on educating consumers about the quality and benefits of their oil by including figures such as polyphenol count, oleic acid percentage, and, most importantly, the harvest date.

While many brands omit this kind of information from labeling, Veronica Foods hopes to shift the consensus of the consumer market from caring about the origins of olive oil to caring about the harvest date by being fully transparent about the qualities of the oil they sell. This is especially important to customers that enjoy their olive oil for nutraceutical purposes and look to take advantage of all the beneficial properties including disease prevention.

Unfortunately, this is not the only challenge that the olive oil market faces. The widespread problem of mislabeled and adulterated product has been going on for years as large name brands blend their olive oil with lesser oils to increase output and maximize profits at the cost of greatly minimizing or completely eliminating the beneficial properties of olive oil. By staying true to their mission of delivering nothing but the finest and freshest olive oil in the world, Veronica Foods continues to be the shining example we proudly source all of our oil from.

April 27, 2018November 13, 2019

The True Story of Our Olive Oil

Here at D’Olivo, we believe in bringing our customers the best olive oils from around the world. As experts in the field with years of experience, not only do we enjoy spreading the many health benefits of olive oil, but we also like to share with customers exactly how our olive oil is made. In this article, we’re going to take you through the amazing journey our olive oils embark on before they reach our store, and, ultimately, your kitchen.

How Olive Oil is Made

Olive oil has been around for thousands of years, originating in the Mediterranean region where the exquisite flavors and beneficial properties of the olive fruit were first realized. Now having spread to nearly every country in the world, olive oils come in an impressive range of varieties that offer unique characteristics depending on where they were grown and the processes farmers to use to harvest and produce the oil.

Part of what makes olive oil so special is the tree itself, which can take anywhere from 3-10 years to begin producing harvest worthy olives (as decided by each individual grower). Due to varying growing conditions and the time at which growers decide to harvest, different flavor profiles will be present which help add to the exciting experience of tasting different oils from around the world.

In addition to the maturity of the olive tree itself, growers must carefully tend to them to ensure each tree grows to yield the maximum amount of fruit. Believe it or not, it can take as much as 10 pounds of olives to produce just one liter of olive oil! Once the olives have grown, they must be harvested at just the right time (usually within 2-3 weeks of their prime) to maintain the most flavor and nutrient density.

If olives are harvested too early or too late, many of the beneficial properties will begin to diminish, as well as the robust flavor profiles. For this reason, at D’Olivo, we source all of our olive oil from Veronica Foods. Their world-class production process and unrivaled quality control adhere to strict guidelines and regular testing to ensure customers get nothing but the finest, highest quality product. By growing their own olives and working with mills that have the same passion about olive oil, they’re able to guarantee an ultra premium consistency.

Once the olives are ripe for harvesting, growers have the option of either handpicking or using a machine to shake them down from the trees. Similar to softer fruits, care needs to be taken when it’s time to harvest because bruising the olives can cause the loss of beneficial properties by triggering oxidation and fermentation. This is why with certain brands of olive oil, the bottles will be labeled as either “tree” or “ground” depending on whether or not the olives used to make the oil were found at the base of the tree.

After harvesting, the olives are then carefully washed and prepared for crushing by removing the stem and leaves. This part of the process is what determines if olive oil is extra virgin or not. For it to be considered extra virgin, the olives must be crushed via mechanical means rather than chemicals and heat that serve to refine the extracted oil. Much like fresh fruit juice, once the olive oil has been crushed, it’s typically run through a centrifuge to separate water and sentiment from the oil before bottling.

For olive oil to be considered “extra virgin”, not only does it need to have an acidity level of 0.8 or below, but it then must go through a series of chemical requirements and tests as set forth by organizations such as the North American Olive Oil Association (NAOOA), International Olive Council (IOC), and even regional governing bodies to name a few. Only after passing this rigorous testing phase can olive oil be deemed extra virgin.

Once the oil is bottled, it then gets shipped following further requirements to ensure it maintains its taste and nutrients. Because extra virgin olive oil is so fresh, the different flavors from region to region really stand out and serve as one of the reasons olive oil tasting is so exciting!

What is Ultra Premium Olive Oil?

The ultra premium category was created to distinguish the highest quality olive oils in the world from the increasing amount of fake olive oil that is flooding markets in nearly every country. It’s been the lack of testing and regulation by agencies and government bodies around the world have only helped to increase the number of fake olive oils that are available. In fact, some sources believe it’s safe to assume that as much as 80% of the Italian olive oil available is fake, having been bottled and sold as authentic extra virgin olive oil to foreign markets, the United States included.

The ultra premium olive oil that we source from Veronica Foods focuses on the when, what, and how of olive oil rather than the where. Understanding that the highest quality olive oil comes from the highest quality fruit and production processes, Veronica Foods puts all of their olive oil through an intensive inspection that encompasses both the production process and the end-product to ensure it adheres to the ultra premium standards they’ve set forth.

Our D’Olivo Passion

At D’Olivo, we strive and work to overcome the negative spotlight that has been placed on the olive oil industry in recent years by faulty organizations and incorrect labeling. As such, we are proud to be the exclusive carriers of Veronica Foods olive oil in the Walla Walla area. Having been founded in 1924, Veronica Foods has since become world-renowned for producing some of the highest quality olive oil found anywhere from their olive grove and hand selected mills that meet their ultra premium standards. It’s their impeccable attention to detail and rigorous testing standards that set them apart so they can further spread the benefits of authentic extra virgin and ultra premium olive oils.